


Tribute

by 1shinymess (magpie4shinies)



Category: Gentleman Bastard Sequence - Scott Lynch
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, Happy halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie4shinies/pseuds/1shinymess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locke gets lost: it's harder than it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tribute

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ghostie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostie/gifts).



> This fic is gift for the Trick or Treat 2014 fic fest! I hope you enjoy this little trick, Ghostie!

Locke took a break in the middle of a mid-sized corridor. He didn’t like stopping. There was a weight to the air that had little to do with how narrow the honeycomb passage of the catacombs was; despite that, he had to rest occasionally. The decline was a gentle slope but Locke had been walking for some time and he could feel it in the faint burn of his thighs. He wanted to make sure he was able to run should he need to. Like if he...meet any other erstwhile explorers in the tombs. (Or the weight of observation changed to the heart-thumping feel of pursuit.) 

The stone walls were uneven in the torchlight, pocked with shadows and rough looking. There was a creeping chill in the air this far down that was only getting worse. He hoped it would level out soon. His obligation weighed heavily in the long shallow pocket of his wrap coat, threatening to pull it out of place. He re-tied the rough fabric and decided that if he were ever in the unfortunate position again to visit this locale that he would not leave his better quality coats home when they might keep him warmer. 

Finally resuming his trek, Locke’s soft-shoed steps made almost no sound to echo from the stone as he moved along the passage; for all that he hadn’t chosen the most practical of clothing, his history had somewhat prepared him for the chill underground. He was glad for the layers he had piled on as the air continued to chill around him with every turn he made, deeper and deeper down into the catacombs. 

The walls began to smooth out, but they also started to narrow as well. When he touched his fingers to the rock in passing, he encountered moisture that hadn’t been found on the stone earlier. As his stomach clenched, he automatically thought back on his trip, reversing all of the steps and presenting himself with a sure exit. Wincing immediately, Locke licked his dry lips and forced himself to continue further into the tombs, cursing his excellent memory.

_“You must make an offering in respect and in penance,” Chains had said not four hours earlier, voice hoarse and oddly quiet for the old man._

_“An offering of what? Where? This is a bit sudden, isn’t it?” Locke had wondered, uneasy as he’d realized they were the only ones in the base._

_Chains had stared at a work of art propped against the far wall, eyes distant enough to be blind in truth. “We weren’t the first ones here, boy. You know that.”_

_Chains’ odd behavior was certainly disconcerting, Locke had thought, and forced himself not to show the signs. “You mean the Eldren.”_

_“To start,” Chains said, voice ragged and raspy. “What the priests never tell you is that there are ancient accords, hidden pacts that all who bear the title of priest must honor, or be struck down.”_

_Locke frowned. “What do you mean?”_

_Chains finally looked at him. “As priest of the Thirteenth, you must make an offering. I’ve put a pack together. Go to the entrance to the catacombs along the Baker’s Canal; you don’t know it well, do you?”_

_Locke had opened his mouth to admit he’d only been in that area of the underground network that made up the catacombs on so many of Camorr’s island districts when Chains had pushed him toward a small dingy bag by the wall. “ Good. Get lost. I mean that literally, Locke. You have to get well and lost, then open the bag at any crossway. There’s bread and...a knife of sorts. A shallow cut, a few drops of blood onto the loaf and leave the bread; you’re done then, bring the knife and get out as quickly as you can.”_

_“That doesn’t make any sense,” Locke had replied. “It’s against all public means of worship or dedication. To whom should I make my offer, the hungry ghosts? We both know the dead don’t rise.”_

_Chains’ mouth had thinned. “Therin dead don’t. Aza Guilla sees to that,” he agreed in a tone that said Locke might catch the lash of his temper with some extra chores if he continued the line of questioning._

_Locke had swallowed and continued a bit more mindfully. “But Therins weren’t the first ones here, you said…” Chains had nodded, eyes heavy lidded. “What prayer should I offer, Chains?”_

_“By the Crooked Warden, the Nameless Thirteenth, to those who came before. Now go, and don’t get fancy, Locke. Just as I said and you’ll be allowed to find your way out.”_

_Locke nodded slowly. “You said...all who bear the title of priest must do this?” Chains nodded once, eyes narrowing as though he knew what Locke would ask. “What happens to those who don’t?”_

_Chains’ mouth had tightened. “They disappear from somewhere that should be safe for days, sometimes weeks, until their bodies are found wherever they were last seen, no matter how thoroughly the area was searched. One or two had ink and parchment and made notes that made no sense, like they’d been dropped into an alien place entirely, and not their own home. That was what could be made out from the first couple entries. The rest were...well. The ravings of the mad. One abandoned his ink mid entry and continued in blood.”_

_Locke had considered that as he turned to the bag leaning innocently against the wall. It had sound like Chains was the madman, honestly, but he hadn’t been able to shake the weight of the man’s heavy-lidded stare and known he’d at least make the effort to follow Chains’ instructions if for no other reason than that the old man had asked it of him. “A few drops of blood on the bread at crossed paths, right? I can manage that much.”_

Remembering the words now, he wondered how often in his life he would come to regret his recently committed actions for their utter foolishness. Sabetha would mock him mercilessly if she could see him now, shaking at shadows like a leaf. The thought didn’t make him want Jean at his back any less. 

Locke continued into the shadows, turning a cautious eye to his torch as it continued to burn. The temperature should level out soon as he continued to descend, at least. He wrapped his arm around his waist, tucking his hand into a fold of his coat. He began mentally reciting lines from A Handsome Price, Jean’s current literary obsession. It was different from Jean’s usual romantic fare: the protagonist was also the villain, and the entire play was about his pride foiling his own intelligence. Chains had recommended it to all of them, but Jean had started it first and Locke had immediately decided to let him filter the story down.

The play had begun with the Duke’s confession:

__

    That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,  
    Looking as if she were alive. I call  
     That piece a wonder, now…  


Locke immersed himself in memory and allowed his feet to follow the path of least resistance, tapping the meter of the lines along his ribs. After a time, he successfully buried himself in the play and forgot all about the cold and the low but persistent feel of eyes from the dark. 

Dust or dirt trapped in the burning rags at the end of his torch pulled Locke from his thoughts some time later and he was instinctively disturbed to realize he truly was lost. “Well, when you’re good at what you do, old boy,” he whispered, the words swallowed in the empty space around him when they should have echoed off of the bare stone. He realized his breath was faintly visible in the air. His heartbeat jumped in his chest with a pang of something that was certainly fear but wasn’t quite pain. 

The pack Chains had given him was an anchor at his belt he was happy to be rid of. He journeyed to the next split in the passage and pulled his hand out from his jacket. His fingers curled instinctively against the cold but he forced his fist to relax and he loosened the flap of his coat to remove the pack. He untied the knot binding the cloth container and unwrapped it, careful to remember Chains’ comment about the knife. Rough bread indeed sat on the cloth in the palm of his hand, but his eyes widened. 

“Crooked Warden.” On top of the short, flat loaf sat a small dagger, no bigger than his thumb and only slightly wider at the base, narrowing to a sharp tip. The hilt was barely a stub,something to grasp carefully if you didn’t want to drop the tiny thing. It wouldn’t have been noteworthy at all if it hadn’t been made of smoked gray elderglass, almost transparent. 

He had a fortune sitting on top of some shitty loaf of bread in some forsaken bit of the catacombs under Camorr, and he still felt like he was the chum in the prelude to a contrarequialla shark match. Swallowing, Locke shifted the bread and dagger onto one hand and tucked the cloth away, then knelt despite the instincts that urged him to drop everything and run. He took a breath to steady himself and then pricked the base of his palm and let a few drops fall onto the bread. “By the Crooked Warden, the Nameless Thirteenth, to those who came before.”

Nothing happened. After a moment, Locke pushed himself to his feet with the help of the damp rock wall. His nervous energy felt almost silly now in the anti-climactic silence, but when he took a breath, the urge to hysterical laughter dissipated and he was only relieved. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just avoided a dagger in the darkness, and for all that nothing had happened, and the others would probably be waiting for him back in the main area of their headquarters with wine and teasing, he found he didn’t much care. If it had been a prank, if they’d somehow got Chains in on it, so be it. He would admit that they’d had him and laugh about it later. For now, he would leave and be glad to get warmer air into his aching lungs. 

He’d followed Chains’ instructions well, but there was still a logic to the overall construction of the catacombs, and the island here wasn’t too large. He would just have to walk until he found one of the exits. He glanced at the bloody bread and nodded once, sharply. “Well, this has been awful. Let’s never do it again.”

Fabric shifted over stone. It was the barest sound, but Locke had been struck by the heavy sound of his own footsteps, the pounding beat of his heart in his breast, and the ragged edge of his breath for what felt like hours: now he was hypersensitive to the audible range and unwilling to doubt his senses. He waited, intensely aware of his own body and the still, moist chilly air he breathed in rapid bursts in through his nose.

There was nothing for a long moment and he wanted to think that it had been his own poorly-chosen coat moving that had disturbed him, but instinct said there was something else down here with him. After a moment, his paranoid ear picked it out for him: his own breath, quick and increasing with every rapid beat of his heart, was being chased by an echo that had nothing to do with stone walls. 

Locke bolted.

The hallways passed in a blur as fear loaned wings to his feet. _Crooked Warden, lead me safely through the dark that I may serve another day,_ he prayed, making the turns on instinct and praying the burn in his calves and thighs was from a steady upward slope.

**Author's Note:**

> The couple lines of poetry I inserted are from [My Last Duchess by Robert Browning](http://www.bartleby.com/42/668.html).


End file.
